The Jeff Gerstmann Hall of Fame 013 (Patreon)

Robotron: 2084 (ARC, 1982) | The Jeff Gerstmann Hall of Fame 013

Remember the dual-joystick shooter boom that happened alongside the rise of the Xbox 360? Xbox Live Arcade made a lot of those games possible, but none of it would've happened if not for Robotron: 2084. The 1982 arcade release popularized the dual-stick format... though you wouldn't really see a more dual-joystick games out there until Eugene Jarvis made another one in 1990, Smash TV. These days, everything from Geometry Wars to Vampire Survivors owes a little something to this Williams classic. Robotron is frenetic and panic-inducing in ways that video games just didn't pull off back then. There's an intensity to it that, for my money, makes it one of the clearest examples of a game that requires you to really get "in the zone" to succeed. I wish I was more successful at Robotron, but for as much as I've tried--mostly over the last 25 years or so via various emulators and such--I've never really felt like I was "good" at Robotron. It's devious. It's sinister! But, mostly, it's a whole lot of things happening all at once.